The present invention relates to glare-reducing coatings. It relates more particularly to electrically-conductive light-attenuating anti-reflection coatings suitable for glare-reducing filters for video display units.
Video display units (VDUs) are now a common feature of everyday life. They are used for example in the home, in schools, and in retail in stores, as well as in offices and laboratories. It is not unusual for workers, such as word processing personnel, telephone operators, airline reservation personnel, and software developers, to spend most of a working day reading from a video display unit.
There is increasing concern for potential health hazards resulting from prolonged operation of a video display unit. Potential hazards include obvious hazards such as eye strain which may result when a screen's visibility is reduced as by glare from room background illumination. There could also be less definable potential hazards which may result from by diffusing reflected light. In such a case, less attenuation would be necessary to reduce glare to acceptable levels than would be necessary for a screen having a specular reflecting surface. Reduced attenuation would provide higher transmission for an image on the VDU screen and thus a brighter image.
Additionally, independent of attenuation level, a glare reducing filter is more effective the lower the reflectivity of the surface of the filter which faces a VDU operator. There are certain lighting conditions where reflection from a filter having a reflectivity as low as 0.1 percent may be distracting to a VDU operator. Clearly there is a need for glare reducing filters having a wide attenuation range and having a reflectivity less than 0.1 percent. Preferably such filters should be effective in reducing reflection not only for light incident normally thereon, but also for light incident thereon at non-normal incidence.